Waiting. Its not a passive doing nothing. In our modern world, it takes all of our energy to resist the urge do take matters (relational, vocational, spiritual) into our own hands. The advent season trains us to do just that: to wait on the presence of God.
Celebratory Suffering
Jesus promises that persecution is inevitable. It’s a mark of the Christian life. He calls us to rejoice in it. So why are we always whining? And how can we become celebratory sufferers? New sermon on “Blessed are those who are persecuted” below!
Belonging
“The only real remedy for the dangers of false belonging is the true belonging to a fellowship of people who are not so much like-minded as like-hearted.”
-Alan Jacobs, How to Think
The Wandering Human
Why do we always leave, whether physically, spiritually, emotionally, or geographically? James KA Smith summarizes the problem:
“It might be youth. It might be the reptilian impulses of a species with migration encoded in its DNA. It might be your inferiority complex or the boredom of small-town claustrophobia or the exhibitionist streak you’ve never told anyone about.
It might be the hungers of ancestors whose aspirations have sunk into your bones, pushing you to go. It might be loneliness. It might be your inexplicable attraction to “bad boys” or the still unknown thrill of transgression and the hope of feeling something. It might be the self- loathing that has always been so weirdly bound up with a spiritual yearning. It might be the search for a mother, or a father, or yourself. It might be greed or curiosity. It might be liberation or escape. “
The author thinks an Augustinian spirituality holds the answer to our wanderlust. Read the rest of the post here.
Potluck Recipe
Emma’s Ramen Noodle Salad
Every Sunday we eat a potluck meal together after our service! We practice this because eating is the most basic, human thing we all have to do. It’s necessary for survival. When you eat together, and serve food to one another, you are communicating your basic desire that the people you eat with flourish and thrive. Which is why, when God wanted to reconcile the world to himself, he left us, not just his word, but a meal.
This week we are highlighting one of our favorite recipes that has been generously shared with our church. Emma Kornegay has contributed her Ramen Noodle Salad recipe. Put your thoughts aside that Ramen Noodles and salad sound like a crazy combo, because this recipe is so good! If you’re adventurous enough to try it then you will fall in love with the crunch that the noodles add.
Emma, thank you for sharing your recipe!
Potluck Recipe
Elizabeth’s Pasta Salad
Every Sunday Christ the King has a potluck meal after our service. We practice this because eating is the most basic, human thing we all have to do. It’s necessary for survival. When you eat together, and serve food to one another, you are communicating your basic desire that the people you eat with flourish and thrive. There is a peace between fellow diners. Which is why, when God wanted to reconcile the world to himself, he left us, not just his word, but a meal.
To celebrate this, we want to begin highlighting favorite potluck recipes that have been generously shared with our church. This week, Elizabeth has contributed her highly requested pasta salad!
Elizabeth, all of Christ the King thanks you for this recipe!
Are you a boomer or a sticker?
“Just as we’ve been created to dwell in a certain place, God has designed us to live within the boundary lines of our bodies. We’re both emplaced and embodied creatures, surrounded by fences on all sides. An enduring mark of spiritual maturity is the faculty to dwell within these fences. The quality of our relationships largely depends on our willingness to recognize and live within.” - Jeremy Linneman
Read the rest here.
Upside Down Kingdom
Upside Down Kingdom
“Paradox is a truth standing on its head to get attention.” -GK Chesterton
My 4 year-old son had all the power, standing in the middle aisle of the church 2 minutes before our service was supposed to start. “Where do you want to sit while you wait for mommy to come back?” He dithered. Equivocated. Listed four totally impossible options. The anxiety rises within me. What to do? Scream? Cajole? Beg? Everybody is watching now, the people to whom I’m getting ready to talk about God. I wish there was a simple answer. There wasn’t. That’s life.
When Jesus sits down to give the sermon on the mount, he says all sorts of paradoxical, counter-intuitive things. Like “happy are those who mourn” and “love your enemies.” And we look at him like he is upside down. Just give it to me straight, Jesus. Just tell me what to do. Give me an instruction, a principle, that I can take away and apply in every situation so that I never have to experience any tension or uncertainty or chaos. Give me something to stabilize me, to take away the anxiety of life, so that I can know, so that I can be sure, so that I can be right. And when he doesn’t? We lose interest. On to something more promising, the next thing, the next answer, the big show, the people who are necessarily like us in age, race, class, so that they don’t introduce any tension or uncertainty into our neatly packaged way of being in the world.
So maybe part of the reason Jesus looks upside down to us is because we are standing on our heads. We want principles, but he gives us paradox, not because he is being difficult, but because he knows that the desire for a principle is a desire to do life, to be human, without the presence of God. And he knows that that is impossible, that humans cannot flourish without him. So he says things that seem upside down, to help turn us right-side up; to force his people to carry, not his principles, but his presence, into the world. Knowing that ultimately those paradoxes find their resolution, their culmination, in the person of the God who once sat on a mountain, but now sits on a throne.
Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are the Meek
As we work our way through the beatitudes this week we arrive at Matthew 5:5, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” But what is meekness and how do we live it out honestly? Consider it in light of the two beatitudes before it: “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and “Blessed are those who mourn.” It will also need to be considered in Christ who was meekest of all.
On Suffering and Easy Answers
"Sometimes we ask how to talk about Christ to somebody who is suffering because we want to avoid our obligation to be Christ to that somebody who is suffering."
-Yammering at the Yard